This album really is great. Noel's choruses were bigger than ever, with songs like Roll It Over and WDIAGW. Liams voice was in top form, 1999 was the ideal year for them to record given that Liams in concert vocals were at an all time high. Where did it all go wrong is Noels best vocal take mixed in with some of his best lyrics, Gas Panic has more depth than most of their catalogue, Roll It Over has amazing vocals and a gigantic chorus, Go Let It out has a good vibe and a great bass line, Who Feels Love is a strong song with great production, PYMWYMI and ICSAL serve as decent total bullshit lyric rockers, SMC is a plodding balad that goes nowhere, and Little James is almost hard to dislike if only for it's oblivious and innocent nature. Yeah, this album is great, it'll be my afternoon album tommorrow.

Not putting Carry us all on that album was a really stupid move by Noel. One of his best songs.

Liam said that he was fine with not singing it because he thought it was "Noel's baby" and "meant a lot to him". Noel since professed his disdain for it. Kinda conflicting. Perhaps Noel liked it, but came off it. Anyways, Carry Us All is a much better song. I've listened to SMC many times and can only vaguely recall how it goes.

SOTSOG contains some of Oasis' best material ever. Gas Panic, LAMB, RIO...10/10

On SOTSOG I like how the lyrics says a lot about Noel's feelings at the time, it's totally a hungover album full of regrets and sorrow: Gas Panic!, WFL?, Roll it Over, LAMB, WDIAGW?, Carry US All and even It's a Crime, all more personal.

I’m not sure why but so many people keep lumping Teotihuacan in with SOTSOG. This song was recorded in 1997. During the heart of the Be Here Now era. It was even released during the tail end of that tour. It’s more of that era than SOTSOG which was still two full years away.

I personally love Sunday Morning Call. Feels like a good old hangover song.

This is a good point to make and something I have indeed considered at more length than you may realise. The correct answer is there is no way to satisfactorily categories every single song the band has ever written. 'Teotihuacan' is one of many outliers whose placement isn't necessarily obvious but here's why I believe it should be very definitely classified in that list:

It was written after the 'Be Here Now' recording sessions, it didn't feature on any of the singles and not only was it released after the final 'Be Here Now' single had been released (12th Jan 98 for 'AATW' or 19th Feb 98 for 'DGA' in Japan) but after the 'Be Here Now' tour had finished too. It's not known precisely when the track was written but seeing as Noel visited Teotihuacan in March 98 during the final two gigs of the Be Here Now tour it can be somewhat assumed it was written after that and then recorded in Air Studios, London between late March and May 98 ready to be released on June 2nd of that year. It also featured on a 98 demo tape with a bunch of songs I don't think anyone would say weren't part of the 'SOTSOG' era...



Also it's sonically very obviously in one camp and not the other. Noel had stated a number of times he wanted to move on from the 'classic' Oasis sound after 'Be Here Now'.

As far as I'm aware the 'Be Here Now' era argument basically amounts to the release date of 'Teotihuacan' (2nd Jun 98) being closer to the release date of 'Be Here Now' (21st Aug 97) than that of 'SOTSOG' (28th Feb 00) which in my opinion is overly simplistic.

A few things:

Everyone's talking about how much of a travesty it was for LAMB to be omitted from SOTSOG but what's even more of a travesty is we never got a version of Full On with Liam on vocals. Had that version existed and been relegated in the same way LAMB had, it would be considered one of the great omissions alongside LAMB.

Anyways, I think even adding LAMB would've improved the album tenfold. PYMWYMI is an okay song but it would've been the ultimate build-up to LAMB. PYMWYMI has swagger and confidence but also an underlying pissiness that something is wrong. That song spilling into LAMB, then Gas Panic!, then Where Did it All Go Wrong?, Sunday Morning Call, and lastly Roll it Over would've all made sense, and it's a damn shame we didn't get that.

(For those wondering where I'd put I Can See a Liar... either before Go Let it Out or after Who Feels Love?)

I have to say I really like PYMWYMI, it's rawer but also totally fits the album sonically, unlike I Can See a Liar which doesn't suit well the album's aesthetics, PYMWYMI feature some cool effects, it's musically interesting at least and that insistent keyboard note just stuck in your brain, on the downside the lyrics are very lazy.

Also, hot take, but Little James isn't as bad of a song as people make it out to be. Get rid of the "Na na na"s at the end and leave it up to just the guitar solo, and it closes out a song that does what only a couple other songs on the album does: fulfills the electronic gospel classic rock feel and sound Noel explained he was going for with SOTSOG.

The "na na na"s at the end take away from the feel a lot and just make it a Beatles/Hey Jude pastiche in an instant. Before that, it's a nice ballad with some cool things going on in it. If only Born on a Different Cloud had been around for SOTSOG because I think that would've sounded something in between the good parts about Little James and what Gas Panic! sounded like.

Also, this album and DOYS are prime for the "Oasis never experimented/tried anything different" crowd to prove them wrong.